By Emily Zeigfinger ‘26
On Jan. 16, Blue Origin successfully launched one of its rockets, New Glenn, setting the stage for future space explorations for the company.
The first attempt for New Glenn (named after John Glenn, an astronaut) took off at 2 a.m. from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. Although the launch was originally supposed to take place a few days prior, ice formed on a power unit, resulting in complications that ultimately determined a delayed mission.
The 320-foot rocket aims to send satellites and equipment into space, with this particular launch carrying a prototype satellite that will eventually host satellites or help carry cargo from Earth.
Blue Origin’s objective for New Glenn’s launch was for the second stage of the rocket to orbit Earth, so that the rocket booster (which helps a rocket successfully take off from the ground) could then land in the ocean. The booster was unfortunately lost during the mission, but Blue Origin CEO Dave Limp was still thrilled with the rocket’s progress.
“We knew landing our booster…on the first try was an ambitious goal. We’ll learn a lot from today and try again at our next launch this spring. Thank you to all of Team Blue for this incredible milestone,” he said in a statement.
Company founder Jeff Bezos’s New Glenn rocket is designed to be reused about 25 times in alignment with Blue Origin’s mission they hope to develop in the future. The company hopes to help take harmful, polluting manufacturing into space to help preserve Earth’s climate and resources. Blue Origin also aims to focus on safe, affordable and overall sustainable rockets so that more people can visit space and potentially live there.
However, Blue Origin is not the only company attempting to find new ways towards space. On the same day, SpaceX’s rocket “Starship” underwent its seventh flight test before dissembling from fire catching in the rocket. Elon Musk, who heads the company, informed people that the spacecraft’s six engines shut down individually in the span of about eight minutes. The company caught the booster at the launch site to hopefully reuse it as the upper area of the rocket disappeared into the Atlantic Ocean.
SpaceX also pioneered traveling, being the first company to deliver goods to the International Space Station. In 2020, however, Musk also approved the transportation of people through SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft, which the SpaceX website said is “capable of carrying both NASA and commercial astronauts to destinations in low-Earth orbit, the Moon and beyond.” Musk hopes to bring people as far into space as Mars through his company.
SpaceX is further expecting to help NASA during the upcoming year with NASA’s Artemis program, which will be the first mission to bring astronauts back to the moon in about 50 years. “The success of NASA’s Artemis program…largely depends on SpaceX’s ability to launch Starship into orbit,” writers for Austin American-Statesman said.
Because of these same-day launches, New Glenn’s success might begin competing with SpaceX in space designing and manufacturing.
“SpaceX is going to be very successful…Blue Origin is going to be successful. And there’s some company that hasn’t even been founded yet, hasn’t even been thought of yet—they’re going to be successful, too,” Bezos said in a recent interview when asked about competition between the two companies.
As Blue Origin and SpaceX look toward the future, there is potential for competition on who can best combine sustainability, technology and affordability on the way to space.
THE BEAR FACTS 